


Going Down Slow

by Istealurfrenchfries



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Confusing Emotions, Connor Needs A Hug, Connor learns how to cry, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hank is surprisingly helpful, Hurt/Comfort, Much cursing in this, Reed is a dick, Wear whatever ship lens you want, but I wrote this as father/son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 09:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Istealurfrenchfries/pseuds/Istealurfrenchfries
Summary: “…am I dying, Lieutenant?” Connor gritted out between another sob, followed by a sharp intake of air.  He couldn’t stop the involuntary action, couldn’t override his own programming, and the more he tried, the more his chest burned.  His face was wet.--Emotions are hard.  Connor doesn't understand them.  Hank helps.





	Going Down Slow

Connor!” A hand waved in front of his face.  Connor felt Hank’s hand brush against his nose.  He glanced up.  “The fuck are you doing?  We got shit to do.”  He was sitting at his desk at the DPD.  Hank was on his feet, staring at him with an eyebrow arched.  Right.  They were on a case.

“Apologies, Lieutenant.  I was running a self diagnostic report,” Connor blinked and straightened his back.  As an android programmed to be a master negotiator, his ability to lie was smooth and impeccable, though it carried far more guilt now than before his deviance. 

In reality, he hadn’t been running any reports at all.  He hadn’t even been thinking about the case at hand, really.  But the truth didn’t make sense to him.  His mind felt..different.  To be expected after deviating only a few short weeks beforehand, but knowing that information and experiencing it were two entirely different things.  His mind felt muddled, less sharp.  Everything was glazed over.  His expansive data bases and vast knowledge now had to share space with the development of emotion and personality.  Occurrences that would never have fazed him before now evoked reaction.  Emotion.  Emotion he wasn’t programmed to have a concept of.  It was exhausting.

“And what does your fancy self-report say?” Hank asked incredulously, “That you’re still a dumbass?  Let’s go.”

The corner of Connor’s mouth lifted up in a half smile at the banter from the lieutenant.  He straightened his tie and followed Hank out to his car.

Half an hour later Connor was stepping foot into an older house, the location of their scene.  They were in one of the worse off neighborhoods of Detroit.  The house was shifting and practically in pieces around them.  Clearly, the building had not been maintained despite having been lived in until just a few hours ago.  It was a homicide – one human and one android, although it was hardly difficult to understand what happened.  The female android laid in pieces on the grimy kitchen floor.  Each limb had been removed and crushed.  Her artificial skin had been removed, and her plasimetal frame had been cracked wide open at the torso.  The white casing splintered outwards like a broken glass.  Biocompartments littered the floor.  A thirium pump laid in the corner, a gyroscope was strewn around the leg of a chair.  Both optical units were laying on opposite sides of the room.  Thirium was _everywhere._

            _Stress levels: 24%_

“Ah, Jesus fucking Christ,” Hank breathed beside him.  Connor inhaled and stepped forward.

“Obvious signs of struggle,” he reported evenly, kneeling down next to the mangled corpse.  He dipped his index finger into the blue blood and brought it up to his mouth.  One of the other officers scowled at him.  “The android’s model is an AX400, serial number 574178150.  Her name is registered as ‘Emily.”

“The owner of the house in Sean Delango.  Thirty-five year old male with a criminal record of two previous drug charges and a domestic abuse charge with his ex-wife,” Hank read off of a report, “Jesus, this asshole’s a charmer.”

Connor stood and wandered into the living room.  An officer passed by and knocked into his shoulder.  The revolution was only a few weeks ago.  Most of the police department staff were still on edge about androids.  Most of the country was. 

“Do you know if he owned an android before the revolution?” he asked.  He glided his fingertips over a messy stack of papers sitting on the coffee table.  Late bills and numerous letters of declined credit cards.  The edges of the papers were all stained with red ice.

“Yeah, though during the uprising, keeping track of every purchased android became damn near impossible.  My guess is that it ran away, but..” Hank paused, “..where did this one come from, then?”

Connor opened his mouth but before he could get a response out, they heard a loud crash and the sound of a scuffle in the back bedroom.

“We got him!” someone shouted.  Seven and a half seconds later, three officers dragged Sean Delango into the living room.  He hadn’t even left the house.

“Think you’re gonna fuckin’ take me out of my own house?” the man slurred.  He was clearly intoxicated.  His shirt was stained with thirium.  “I didn’t do a goddamn thing wrong.”

“Sir, an android is laying on the floor of your kitchen.  Murdered,” Connor arched an eyebrow.   His input seemed to cause further aggression, as the man started to struggle all over again.  He stared wildly at Connor.

“That thing ain’t nothing but a bunch of bolts,” he sneered.  Spit flew everywhere.  “Piece of shit thought it could run away and join a _revolution._ Hah!  But I found it again and taught it a goddamn lesson.  Fuckin’ androids.”

“That’s enough,” Hank ordered.  Delango’s head lolled as he was forcibly escorted outside of the house. 

“You’re not gonna arrest me because I destroyed an android,” he spat, “It’s a fucking robot.  A plastic piece of shit.”  He suddenly stopped and leveled his gaze with Connor.  He grinned.  “Just wait.  They’re gonna destroy you one of these days.  You’re no person, just a hunk of plastic!”

“I said that’s enough!” Hank growled, grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him outside.  A heavy pressure bloomed across Connor’s chest and he suddenly felt like he’d been kicked in the chest.  He couldn’t identify the feeling, so he pushed it away and slowly trailed behind everyone else to get outside.

“Come on, Connor,” Hank approached him, huffing from the exertion.  “Nothing else for us to do here.  Good work.”

Connor looked around.  Delango was handcuffed and being shoved into a police vehicle, but the other officers simply looked bored.  Some were even looking in his own direction with muted disdain.  Connor’s gaze lowered as he comprehended.

They didn’t take the murder of this android seriously.  If android rights weren’t now written into law, this investigation likely wouldn’t even be occurring.  Emily would have died, and no justice would have been served.  To them too, this incident was nothing more than the destruction of an expensive machine.  To them, the only thing Connor amounted to was plastic and metal and biocompartments.  He could have been the one ripped apart and murdered, and no one would bat an eye. He nodded and followed Hank.

            _Stress levels: 35%_

_  
_

* * *

They were back at the DPD an hour later.  A report had been filed, and charges were pressed against Delango.  The case was laid to rest, but Connor felt anything but relaxed.  The case had not been remotely difficult, but his mind felt heavy.  It didn’t feel like enough. 

Something in his chest panged again, and he closed his eyes and breathed.  A quick self diagnosis report informed that all of his processors were working in perfect function, and yet he felt uncomfortable and agitated. 

Connor needed something to do.  Almost in reflex, he slipped the quarter out of his pocket and maneuvered it to his will.  This was easy to focus on and take the pressure off his overstimulated mind.  He tossed the coin from his left hand to the right, then back again.  Let the cool metal glide over his fingers.  Back and forth.  Repeat. 

He made it to the fifth cycle of this before Hank reached over his desk and slapped the quarter out of his hand.  Connor inhaled at the rough contact.

“I’ve told you over and over again to quit with the fuckin’ coin,” Hank muttered.  The coin hit the floor with a quiet _chink_ and rolled away until it fell through the slates of a vent.  The probability of successfully finding and retrieving it was a mere 13%.  The probability of Hank letting him try was even less.  Connor sighed.

“Sorry, Lieutenant.” 

            _Stress levels: 45%_

The rest of the day consisted of desk work.  Connor found this to be distasteful, but he typically concealed his attitudes better than Hank.  However, today he wished for nothing more than another active case to work on.  Since deviating, he found that boredom led to his mind wandering, a phenomenon that never used to occur before. 

“You okay, Connor?”  Connor glanced at Hank.

“Of course.  Why would I not be?”

“Your light-thing is all yellow and shit.  Dust stuck in your system?  Do I need to spray you down with compressed air?” 

Connor lifted a hand to his LED.  He had yet to make a decision whether he should remove it or not.

“That will not be necessary, Lieutenant.  My biocompartments are self-maintaining,” Connor said, lowering his hand and looking back at his computer screen.  Hank was looking at him with something akin to concern, but he ignored it. 

The feeling creeped over his chest again.  He pushed back his chair and stood up.  Androids didn’t require breaks to stretch out leg muscles like he saw many humans do, but he hoped that maybe it would help.  Although what it was he was trying to help, exactly, Connor didn’t quite know.  He walked into the break room.  Perhaps he’d get coffee for Hank.  The lieutenant was always in some form of sleep deprivation.  Connor was always hearing him pace around in his room at night, during hours that any rightful human should be sleeping.  Perhaps he’d appreciate the gesture.

“Well, look at the tin can,” a hand slapped the paper coffee cup out of his hands.  Coffee spilled down his shirt.  He winced.  Pain was another symptom of deviancy, apparently.  A warning message about his artificial skin receiving burns popped up in his peripheral, but he dismissed it.  Detective Reed was sneering in his face. 

“Machines don’t need coffee.  What the fuck are you doing?”

“Detective Reed,” Connor acknowledged, voice flat and cool.  He reached for the roll of paper towels on the counter, but Gavin stood in his way.  “It’s not for me.  It’s-“

“Oh, Hank’s got you fetching things, eh?  Makes sense, that’s the only thing you’re useful for.”

“He didn’t ask-“ Connor was cut off by Gavin pushing him.  His back thudded against the wall.

            _Stress levels: 52%_

“You think you’re a person now, huh?” Gavin spat in his face, but he was grinning.  Clearly, he was enjoying himself.  “Just because you caused some half-assed revolution and changed some laws, huh?  You think you’re better than me?”

Connor’s jaw clenched, but he remained silent.  Gavin pushed him against the wall again, and his fist connected where Connor’s diaphragm would be, if he had one.  He grunted. 

“You’re fuckin’ nothing,” the detective continued, punching him again.  It didn’t even occur to Connor to yell for help.

            _Stress levels: 58%_

“Nothing but a plastic piece of shit for Hank to play with.”  Gavin’s hand squeezed Connor’s throat.

            _Stress levels: 65%_

“I ought to rip you to pieces like that android from this morning.”

            _Stress levels: 71%_

“At least then, you’d shut your goddamn mouth.” 

            _Stress levels: 79%_

The hand around his throat tightened.  Connor’s respiratory system stopped.  If he were human, he’d be choking.

            _Stress levels: 86%_

“All you are is a fucking tin-can.”

Then Connor was pushing Reed back with a firm hand against his chest.  The hand around his throat slipped away.

“What the fuck are you-“  Connor cut him off by reeling his arm back and knocking his elbow into the side of Gavin’s head.  Hard.  It wasn’t calculated like his attacks typically were.  It was messy and sporadic, nothing more than a desperate attempt to get the man away from him.  He was breathing hard.

Gavin hit the floor with a thud, then scrambled back with a wild look in his gaze.  Within a few moments, Fowler was running into the room.  Hank followed behind him.

“What the fuck is happening here?”

Connor pressed himself against the wall.  Gavin held his bleeding nose while pointing up at Connor.

“That fuckin’ android attacked me!  Piece of shit-“

“Gavin, shut the fuck up,” Hank bitched.  He touched Connor’s shoulder, but Connor flinched away.  His LED circled red.

“Both of you in my office.” 

“….of course, Captain,” Connor answered.

“Shut up.”

What followed next was unpleasant as they both sat in Fowler’s office, but ruled out in Connor’s favor.  Connor was suspended for the rest of the day, Reed for the next week. 

“You’re goddamn lucky there’s cameras in that room,” Fowler had said to him,  “After everything, no one wants to look in the favor of androids right now.  But he provoked you.  I know that.”  Connor only nodded.  Hank was going to take them home.

It was fifteen minutes into the car ride before any words were exchanged between them.

“I’m sorry, Hank.”

“Don’t be.  You got me out of sitting at that fucking desk all day.”

It was quiet a moment.  Hank hadn’t even turned the radio on. 

“Well, do’ya feel better now, at least?” Hank asked, side eyeing him the drivers’ seat.  Connor gritted his teeth.

“No.”

Hank sighed from beside him.

“Look, we all fucking hate Reed.  The guy’s a dick.  I don’t blame you for fighting back, but this is the shit that makes you lose your job,” he said.  Connor bristled.  Was this anger?

Silence stretched on the car between them, save for the low whirring of Connor’s thirium pump as his artificial heart raced.  He leaned his head against the window and watched the rain.  He wished it could wash away all the fuzziness in his head. 

“He called me tin-can,” Connor finally spoke in a low monotone. 

“He calls you that every day,” Hank arched an eyebrow, “Sorry, kid.  You’re going to have to try harder than that.” 

“I’m not a fucking tin can.”  Expletives were more Hank’s verbiage, but it had felt good to say.  To try to properly get across how enormously _unfair_ this new life was.  “I’m Connor.”

Hank glanced at him.  He didn’t say anything, but Connor felt prompted to continue regardless.  He closed his eyes.  “Before I...deviated, it didn’t bother me.  I didn’t care,” he murmured, pressing his temple harder against the cool glass of the window.   “I was just a machine, completing my mission.  Detective Reed was simply a poor distraction to an investigation.  Calling me a machine didn’t upset me.  That is what I was.  It was as if someone were to call you a human and expected it to bother you.  But now, it..” he fumbled, unable to supply the human emotion.  His processors weren’t built for this.

“Hurts?” Hank supplied, and Connor burned with embarrassment.  Another emotion.  Why was he embarrassed?  Why couldn’t he control it?  It didn’t make _sense._ He ran a rough hand through his hair, tugging on the synthetic strands as if the motion would give him some clarity. 

“Yes,” he nodded.  Connor cracked his eyes open and looked at Hank.  “Why does it hurt?”  Hank scoffed in a way that Connor had come to know meant he was missing something.  Another human concept which he was inept to.

“You’re more human than you think you are, son.  Humans feel things.  Better get used to it,” he supplied.  Connor mulled over his words and fell back into silence. 

 

* * *

 

Connor sat on the edge of the bed with his feet planted on the floor, in the room Hank had insisted he stay in.  _‘You can’t just keep sleeping on the sofa, or whatever stasis mode shit it is you do at night_.  _The sofa is Sumo’s spot, Connor,’_ Hank had said, but there’d been something else in his voice as well.  Something Connor couldn’t quite identify.  The room used to be Cole’s, but Hank had cleaned it out a long time ago, well before he and Connor had met.  He’d said something about how the physical memories in the room were driving him insane, and so they‘d had to go.  The important stuff, like Cole’s favorite toy and photos, were kept in Hank’s room.  Hank had gotten a new bed for Connor, but the room was barren.  Not that Connor minded.  This was the first privacy he’d ever had in his life.  It was strange. 

He’d taken his jacket and tie off, but his white shirt was still stained a dirty beige with coffee.  His LED hadn’t stopped circling red since his interaction with detective Reed, and his head felt even muddier than before.

Connor hunched forward, elbows resting on his thighs and his head in his hands.  His chest hurt, and his mind was overwhelmed.  He didn’t understand why.  His programs and processors felt like they were being squished against the sides of his head by something bigger, something much heavier than he was capable of handling. 

For the first time, Connor was painfully aware of how much humans hated androids.  Of how much they hated him.  He sighed.

The world _hated_ him.

His thirium pump began to work faster.  His brows furrowed.  This shouldn’t be affecting him.  Something had to be wrong with him.  Maybe he was defective.  He was a prototype, after all.  He was never built to last for a long time.  Perhaps all of the running and the fighting and the fieldwork had caught up to him, and now he would cease to function.  Maybe he’d just shut down-

“What’s wrong?”  Hank’s sudden question caused Connor’s head to snap up like a deep in headlights.  His chest tightened like there was a vice around it.  He hadn’t even realized that the lieutenant had walked in.  He swallowed unnecessarily.

“Nothing,” he tried to reply airily, but all that managed to come out was a choked murmur.  Only then did he realize how hard he was breathing, how his head was spinning, how it felt as if one wrong move would cause him to explode.  He didn’t know why, but this felt like something that shouldn’t be witnessed by anyone else.  Hank shouldn’t be here.  Hank should just let him die in peace.  “My systems are all functioning perfectly.”

“Bullshit.  Connor, you look like someone ran Sumo over.  What’s the issue?”  The concern on Hank’s face was palpable. 

“I don’t..” Connor stumbled and stuttered.  Why was he stuttering?  Why did his chest hurt so badly?  His vision blurred and his face felt hot.  Were those tears?  Why were there tears?  “I don’t understand.  What is happeni-“ a low sob broke off his sentence.  He squeezed his eyes shut and curled in on himself with a protective arm around his stomach and the other crossed over his chest.  He was dying.  He had to be dying.

_Stress levels: 65%_

“…am I dying, Lieutenant?” Connor gritted out between another sob, followed by a sharp intake of air.  He couldn’t stop the involuntary action, couldn’t override his own programming, and the more he tried, the more his chest burned.  His face was wet.

“Are you…what?  No, you’re not…you’re okay, son,” Hank said.  Connor made a guttural noise of distress and tried to rip his own hair out, but then he felt Hank’s hands grip his wrists and pull them away.  The frustration ripped another horrible heaving sound from him.  His chest hurt. 

“Stop it, Connor, you’re fine,” Hank scolded, but his voice was uncharacteristically soft, “You’re not dying.  You’re sad.”

“Sad?” Connor muttered back in disbelief.  Was this what ‘sad’ was?  He pulled his hands from Hank’s grasp and curled his arms around himself again.  He tried to hold back another sob, clenching his jaw.  He desperately wanted it to stop.  Why did androids ever want to feel?  “I don’t..un..under..understand.”

_Stress levels: 90%_

“Stop trying to hold it in.  Let it out, son,” Hank rested a hand on his back.  Connor wasn’t accustomed to hearing the steady comfort currently in the lieutenant’s voice, and what was left of his composure started to crumble.  He was scared to find what exactly would happen if he lost it completely.  “Just let it out.  It’ll be over soon.”

Connor broke.  His back arched as he hunched over and tried to be as small as possible.  Sob after sob tore through his throat, and instantly the pressure in his chest began to release as he ‘let it out,’ whatever _it_ was.  His hands clenched into fists, nails biting into artificial skin. 

“That’s it, son, there you go,” Hank soothed.  Connor felt heat and a deep pressure around himself as he was enveloped into the older detective’s arms.  This was a hug – he’d only been hugged once before.  Very briefly after the revolution, and by Hank himself.  Although he didn’t reciprocate the hug, the embrace made him feel less vulnerable.  Safe.  He pressed his forehead against Hank’s shoulder and wept.  The older man rubbed his back in response.  It only caused him to cry harder.  “There you go, Connor.”

Everything spilled out of him like it had been him to have his casing cracked open that morning.  He didn’t like it, didn’t understand it, but Hank told him to do it and he trusted Hank with these kinds of things.  Terrible, pathetic, miserable sounds that he didn’t even know he was capable of making forced themselves from his body.  His chest heaved as the outburst was expelled.  He faintly registered a hand on the back of his head, fingers running through his hair. 

Eventually it stopped, and Connor was left breathless, leaning all of his weight into Hank.  He took laborious breaths to combat the increase in temperature of his biocomponents, but also just because it felt good to finally get a good breath in again, to regain control of himself.  His LED melded from red to yellow.  He finally pieced together what had happened. 

“I am sorry, Lieutenant,” Connor finally spoke in low mumble.  He pulled away and sat up on his own.  He wiped away tears from his face, and there was no small amount of shame (or what he believed was shame) within him as he noticed the dark patch on Hank’s shirt where his face had been in contact.  “I seem to be…inefficient at handling and deciphering emotions.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid.  You’ll learn,” Hank was quick to brush it off.  Connor glanced up.  Hank was never this nice to him.  “Emotions get ahold of the best of us, and you’ve only just started to experience them.  Give yourself a break.”  He patted the younger man’s shoulder.

Connor nodded slowly and closed his eyes.  He didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling.  He was still sad (as Hank had clarified for him), but not so explosively upset anymore.  He could think again.

            _Stress levels: 21%_

“Lieuten..Hank,” Connor opened his eyes when Hank stood up and started to leave the room.  “Thank you.”

Hank paused for a moment.

“Anytime, son.  This world is a shit place for you to be right now, but give it time.  It’s going to get better.”

        

**Author's Note:**

> I just really needed Hank walking Connor through his first cry. Tell me if it's shit, yeah?


End file.
